Superlatives

List up to 3 of the:

• Scariest
• Most moving (sad and/or happy)
• Funniest
  
  ...books you've ever read. Can be fiction or non-fiction, graphic novel or ones without pictures.

I haven't answered this because I was struggling to remember titles and so forth. I quit. Here's what I've got:

• Scariest --
  1. The novelization of the movie "Alien," which I read in bed one night in high school when the movie was first out. I read the whole book, staying up till 3ish and then couldn't sleep at all. I've never seen the movie; too scared!
  2. Most of Poe's short stories give me the creeps. I used to enjoy them, but now I just get creeped out.
  3. "Pet Sematery" (or however it's spelled!) by Stephen King. Really, anything he writes scares me. He's good, and I can't read him anymore. Bummer.
  
• Most moving (sad and/or happy) --
  1. "Jane Eyre." I cry at some point every time I read that book.
  2. "These Happy Golden Years" and "The First Four Years." I'm deliriously happy most of the way through the first one, and by the end of the second one I'm practically ready for a rubber room.
  3. Early Sara Paretsky books. I used to be so ANGRY I'd throw them across the room. Not at the writing or the story, but at the sheer injustice of the world.
  
• Funniest --
  1. Bill Bryson books. After I read the one about the Appalachian Trail, he was officially banned from my bed. See, it shook too much when I was reading; I was keeping Beast awake.
  2. Hello. Janet Evanovich, particularly the first couple in the Stephanie Plum series. I have sore ribs after every one of her books.
  3. Paul Theroux can be pretty funny too, but in a much more cynical and wry way than the other two.